Monthly Archives: April 2012

Today I will post about one subject only: “bird eye perspective photographs”.

During our trips in Bali, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia my husband Mathieu Nagelkerke and I photographed many photos with a bird eye perspective. We like this angle of making photographs so.. I will show you a mix of photographs.

Mathieu photographed amazing photos from the Petronas Twin Towers, the tea plantation Cameron Highlands and the white buildings with the red roofs, all photographed in Malaysia. Mathieu also photographed great photos from the Great Wall in China.

If you visit Bali and you stay in one of the lovely beach places you should also plan one day or more to visit Ubud.

Ubud is a town in Bali, located amongst rice paddies and steep ravines in the central foothills of the Gianyar regency.

Of course the guides will bring you to the market and fancy shops in Ubud, don’t miss that…but if you want to see more of the beautiful environment of Ubud you should take a walk through the rice paddies or take a bike tour.

We did a bike tour with friends, we had so much fun, it is really great to do. Ubud and surrounding is a beautiful place for cycling. We visited a small plantation, stopped to see how people harvest the rice, cycled through lovely Balinese villages and lots, lots more. You feel so close to nature and the Balinese people.

My husband Mathieu and me photographed many, many sunsets of Bali. If the sky is clear there is always a stunning sunset in Bali. But.. if there are some clouds in the sky, the sky looks like a painting, so many colors, so beautiful. Sunsets are never boring….

Shadow puppet theater is called wayang kulit in Indonesia and it is particularly popular in Java and Bali. The term derived from the word wayang literally means shadow or imagination in Javanese, also connotes “spirit”. The word kulit means skin, as the material from which the puppet is made is thin perforated leather sheets made from buffalo skin.

The performances of shadow puppet theater are accompanied by gamelan in Java. In Bali it is known as wayang kulit and originally lasted as long as six hours or until dawn. The complete wayang kulit troupes include dalang (puppet master), nayaga (gamelan players), and sinden (female choral singer). Some of the nayaga also performed as male choral singer. The dalang (puppet master) played the wayang behind the cotton screen illuminated by oil lamp or modern halogen lamp, creating visual effects similar to animation. The flat puppet has moveable joints that are animated by hand, using rods connected to the puppet. The handle of the rod is made of carved buffalo horn..

In the Western world we are using machines to manufacture our products. For many people of Bali and Lombok working with their hands is very normal, no machines are being used. When you travel on the islands of Bali and Lombok you will see many workplaces without big working machines, the people are making beautiful products by hand. In Lombok I saw a group of housewives sitting in the bale (gazebo), braiding offer baskets. It looks very relaxing, talking and working with each other and the children playing around them.

In Bali you will see next to the working hands also moving hands. On the beach, musicians playing on their instruments or the priest who blesses the bride and groom.

Hands… very important instruments, for working, for playing, for blessings, for touching….

I bought this silver bracelet with tribal design for my husband’s birthday. I bought the bracelet in SKIN post-atomic wear shop.

SKIN sells men and women clothes. My husband and me, we both like the clothes of SKIN. The clothes are comfortable to wear. SKIN sells also accessories like bags, belts, sandals and jewelry both for men and women.